head to head · open source
rclone vs Nextcloud
rclone has 60,740 GitHub stars, 5,640 forks, 1,273 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Nextcloud has 37,396 stars, 5,334 forks, 3,657 open issues and last shipped yesterday. rclone leads on adoption by 62% (60,740 vs 37,396 stars). rclone is written in Go under MIT; Nextcloud is written in PHP under AGPL-3.0. rclone has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Nextcloud 14%. Nextcloud was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| rclone | Nextcloud | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 61K | ★ 37K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.6K | ⑂ 5.3K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick rclone if
- You weight community size — 61K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Nextcloud if
- You want the Nextcloud feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and Nextcloud fits your workflow better
About rclone
Website Documentation Download Contributing Changelog Installation Forum Rclone Rclone ("rsync for cloud storage") is a command line program to sync files and directories to and from different cloud storage providers. Storage providers 1Fichier :page facing up: Akamai Netstorage :page facing up: Alibaba Cloud (Aliyun) Object Storage System (OSS) :page facing up: Amazon S3 :page facing up: ArvanCloud Object Storage (AOS) :page facing up: Bizfly Cloud Simple Storage :page facing up: Backblaze B2 :page facing up: Box :page facing up: Ceph :page facing up: China Mobile Ecloud Elastic Object Storage (EOS) :page…
read the full rclone overview →
About Nextcloud
Nextcloud Server ☁ A safe home for all your data. Why is this so awesome? 🤩 📁 Access your Data You can store your files, contacts, calendars, and more on a server of your choosing. 🔄 Sync your Data You keep your files, contacts, calendars, and more synchronized amongst your devices. 🙌 Share your Data …by giving others access to the stuff you want them to see or to collaborate with. 🚀 Expandable with hundreds of Apps ...like Calendar, Contacts, Mail, Video Chat and all those you can discover in our App Store 🔒 Security with our encryption mechanisms, HackerOne bounty program and two factor authentication…
read the full Nextcloud overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is rclone or Nextcloud more popular?
rclone has 60,740 GitHub stars and Nextcloud has 37,396. rclone has the larger community by that measure.
Are rclone and Nextcloud free?
Both are open source. rclone is licensed under MIT and Nextcloud under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rclone and Nextcloud?
rclone is written in Go and Nextcloud in PHP. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, rclone or Nextcloud?
Choose rclone if you want the larger community (60,740 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Nextcloud if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.